What Do You Know About Pistachios? Flavours Investigates The Sicilian Nut

Italy loves pistachios and they are found either whole, crushed or used as a flavour in a wide variety of products such as gelato, pesto, ravioli, pastries, cream, sweets and cakes. It seems to pervade every aspect of Italian cuisine and well it might as it has been in the country for probably more than a thousand years. In fact until relatively recently pistachios were grown and exported from Sicily mainly in the Bronte region and around the world-famous Etna volcano.

This love affair with the noble nut, often draped in the colour of emperors, probably dates back to the time of the Phoenicians or perhaps the earliest Greek, way back in the annals of time. But once the Arabs took control of these nut trees, during the ninth century, production really increased and everyone developed a taste for these tasty treasures many of us still crave today.

Originally you would find Pistachios grown in India and throughout Central Asia, the Middle East and all along the eastern Mediterranean. Therefore it wasn’t too difficult to see why Sicily should have joined this exclusive club and become world famous for her own production.

Sicilian pistachios though are somewhat different to other varieties as they are slightly longer and a tad thinner than those found in Iran and Iraq. The Sicilian pistachios also undergo savage pruning every two years, a practice which is said to date back to the Arab Saracens who really improved nut production a thousand years ago. They had good reason to improve their harvest as pistachios have always been a mainstay of many sweet confections. When it is mixed with cane sugar it produces the perfect, sickly and delicious pastry treats we know and savour even now.

The volcanic soils around Etna have contributed to the Sicilian pistachio being slightly more robust than its Middle Eastern cousin, certainly the taste is much sharper. However, not that many people outside Italy know this fact as pistachios are not exported in great numbers. Neither the Italian government or the EU offers the kind of financial helping hand olive farmers receive.  Therefore, as you can well imagine, this impacts considerably on the numbers of farmers who wish to grow and sell these nuts.

Added to financial constraints, they are often bedevilled with cultivation problems such as lack of water and the slightly temperamental qualities of Pistachio trees in general. It is generally considered that on the whole, almonds fare much better in the Sicilian climate and therefore are far more available bearing in mind the reputation  pistachios have as being just that little bit more challenging and risky too. Sicilian drought conditions also contribute to the fact production has fallen.

Still that doesn’t stop them appearing all over the country in one form or another. Pistachios make a lively substitute for pine nuts in a pesto, for example and are used to give texture to rice dishes and also go well as a snack when toasted while sitting in an Italian bar watching a sunset.

They have health properties too and offer an effective source of protein, thiamine and Vitamin B6 but that can be willingly destroyed when mixed up with eggs and cream to form a regal Italian ice cream.

If you want to learn more about Italian ingredients and really understand process and passion then why not undertake a Flavours Cooking holiday in 2013 and come home enthused. Check out the results of two Flavours aficionados and their Taste of Sicily book they produced on the back of their inspirational experience.

If you go down to the woods today... make sure they are in Italy

Where would Italian cooking be without a handful of mushrooms? As fungi does in nature, so in this cuisine, they just appear and you can expect to eat mushrooms which are fresh, dried, canned, preserved or infused in some way or another. The Italians are nothing if not ingenious in making use of everything produced in that fertile country.

All of Italy has a passion for both Puccini and Porcini. The latter is an endearing diminutive, meaning little pig or piglet. It’s not surprising this squat little fellow has earned such a moniker as Porcini has a texture akin to meat and combines pungent aroma with a slightly dank earthiness with memories of the pine forest or chestnut woods where these meaty beauties were born. Their nuttiness marries so efficaciously with Italian ingredients it actually provides tasty dishes fitting for the most aristocratic banquet or the simplest of breakfasts.

It’s not a surprise that Porcini should be totally entwined in Italian culinary tradition, as in the wild state, it develops a symbiosis with its host and often emerges at the base of trees. Sometimes they are difficult to spot exactly as the genus Boletus is prolific and varies tremendously in terms of shape, size and colour but the prize must be those pale youngsters bedding down beneath chestnut trees. Imagine foraging early in the morning and discovering a patch of plump fleshy caps which exude the scent of nature, time passing, fecundity and decay; it is a heady perfume that reminds us of our birth and where we are all eventually headed. Porcini? Just a mushroom? You have to be kidding!

An Italian staple is Boletus Brisa and these can be found in mountainous regions and an area famed for production is close to Parma. If you have ever inspected the classic preserved anti pasti funghi in oil you will notice the Porcini used there is often Porcino Nero and sometimes Porcini mushroom also appear to reflect their background being coppery orange just like the beech woods from which they derive. Do note, pickers in Italy do so under license and are restricted to just two kgs per week. Whether they are picking Porcino d’estate or Porcino del Freddo they must be gathered in traditional baskets. Why? To allow spores the opportunity to waft in the air and ensure a succession of mushrooms in future seasons. It’s not just a romantic gesture to swing your brimming basket on the way home from a successful foraging trip you are enacting a valuable service too.

So, once gathered, what might you do with your fresh porcini mushrooms? Our Flavours cookery mentors are full of ideas yet sometimes the simplest one which accentuate those Porcini qualities means fresh produce cannot be topped or messed around with too much. Treat your fresh Porcini with love and respect and just expose them to a brief grill and serve with the highest quality olive oil, some garlic if you like and chopped parsley and for me, a squeeze of lemon. Who needs meat when a mushroom tastes like this? You could fry or stew them, add tomato or chop them to top a slice of bruschetta. I defy you not to nibble all the time you prepare these little delicacies as bread and mushrooms were made for one another.

If you plump for preserved Porcini they must be steeped in good quality olive oil and should be kept cool, maybe in a dark cupboard or pantry so they don’t fade. If you are in Tuscany, Umbria or Puglia on a Flavours cooking course, expect local varieties to differ as each growing tradition is affected by climate, by woodland and of course, by geology.

After being excited by the possibilities Porcini can bring to your cooking, unless you live near a large urban area most people will need to settle for dried versions. These are in no way inferior and the drying process lends these mushrooms a different but very special quality all of their own. The flavour is more intense and this concentrated packet of intensity will transform a risotto or soup. Ensure their presence is announced as you open a packet – if they have lost their aroma, then I am afraid the taste will have evaporated too. If their appearance is crumbly or dusty, leave well alone.

If you have fallen in love with Italian food and really want to explore its traditions and techniques then join a cookery course and infuse your life with the passion and romance of Italy, who knows what you might discover about life, love and death when handling the beloved Porcini!

OLIVE OIL HARVEST

Take a rake, a big stick and a large net - and you’re all set. Olives are still harvested traditionally, by hand, throughout much of Italy. And joining in the harvest gives you the chance to experience a real slice of rural Italian life: a raw, vivid, backbreaking – but wonderfully invigorating, taste of Italy.

The autumn harvest has followed the same pattern for centuries. Workers, friends and family all come together to gather in the crop from the small farms. The olive groves, regimented terraced slopes of shimmering silvery leaved trees, rustling and rippling in the breeze, suddenly swarm with activity. The gnarled trees, their trunks knobbly and scared are old and curmudgeonly, but their branches are laden with young, ripening green fruit.

Timing is crucial – you want to harvest the olives when they are on the brink of turning from green to black to get the best quality oil. Then, once picked, the olives need to be taken to the mill or Frantoio and pressed quickly – usually within 36-48 hours before they start to deteriorate and mould develops on the fruit. The olives are generally harvested in Italy from October to December depending on location: in the cooler north the crop ripens later.

Machinery has been developed to harvest the olives, contraptions which shake the trees so that the fruit falls to the ground where it’s collected in nets, but this is only possible on flat, even land. Olive groves tend to sprawl across rocky, inhospitable hillsides where harvesting manually is the only option. Picking by hand takes time, of course, but the advantage is there’s less bruising to the fruit. Stripping the olives from the branches with a special hand rake can be slightly quicker catching the olives, again, in nets on the ground.

It’s tough, hot work even though the sun is weak and watery, but you get a real feel for they way life has been here for centuries. And a sense of camaraderie as you work together, breaking for a rustic picnic lunch, sitting on the hard earth in the olive grove with your fellow-pickers.

Flavours of Italy offers the opportunity to join in the olive harvest on its trips this autumn with availability on the 22-25 October, 26-29 October, 4-7 November, 11-14 November, and the 18-21 November.

Parma Ham – A Classic Italian Ingredient for the Storecupboard

Prosciutto di Parma. Somehow it sounds so much more romantic in Italian. Farmers in the countryside surrounding the little town of Parma (which will forever be synonymous with ham) have been air-drying pigs’ thighs for over two thousand years.

Prosciutto – ham in Italian – originally comes from the Latin perexsiccatus which then morphed into the Italian prosciugare – to dry. Parma ham is a prosciutto crudo or raw ham: the hind leg or thigh of a pig that has been dry-cured with salt for a couple of months then washed and hung in a dark, well-ventilated room to dry and aged for up to a year and a half.

In the UK we often use Parma ham as the generic term for prosciutto. However, although Parma in Emilia-Romagna has PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status for its ham– it is by no means the only area to produce mouth-watering prosciutto. Some claim that the prosciutto from San Daniele (Fuili) is better – it’s certainly more expensive - and you can get air-dried ham in Piedmont too, the Veneto, Umbria and Tuscany…

So what differentiates them? In Parma production is on a huge scale but, of course, there are still small producers. And every farmer has his own method. The breed of pig influences the flavour, the diet it’s fed (San Daniele pigs eat a lot of acorns) the temperature and altitude when it’s cured.

Parma ham, for example, is known for its sweetness, Tuscan ham for its saltiness.

Of course, purists will say you should, if you can afford it, buy a whole ham. Don’t buy pre-packaged slices. But not all of us have a handy larder in which to hang a slab of pig.

If you do, or even if you just buy sliced Parma ham from your local deli, there is so much more to prosciutto than the (admittedly heavenly) restaurant staple, Parma ham and melon. Wow your dinner guests with Parma ham wrapped around grissini or bread sticks with their aperitifs. Or toss it into a creamy pasta sauce, on top of a homemade pizza or jazz up a sandwich Panini. Or crisp in a pan and use as a garnish on soups.

Or keep it simple. An old breadboard, a slab of Italian cheese, fresh figs, a bottle of Chianti and wafer-thin slices of prosciutto di Parma. The perfect impromptu summer supper.

www.prosciuttodiparma.com